"Ahhh!"
Olivia's foot caught on a half-buried root, and for a split second her whole body pitched forward, arms flailing as the ground rushed up to meet her.
Soren's hand shot out on instinct, fingers closing around her wrist, and he yanked her back before her knees could hit the dirt.
"Careful," he said, keeping his voice low and steady, more a reminder than a scold.
Olivia wobbled once, then found her balance again, shoulders drawing in as if she wanted to shrink into herself.
"S-Sorry, Soren…" she murmured, eyes dipping away from his face, cheeks faintly pink with embarrassment.
He didn't even need to ask what she was thinking; it was written all over her, the same apologetic tension she'd had the last time, and the time before that.
Soren loosened his grip, but he didn't let go immediately, not until he was sure she was properly upright.
Then he withdrew his hand as if he had never grabbed her at all, giving her back that small sense of space she seemed to need.
"It's fine," he said, deliberately light, like this was normal, like it wasn't worth spiralling over. "You're a priestess. If you could sprint through a forest like a knight, I'd be worried someone made a mistake."
Olivia blinked, then let out a tiny, breathy laugh that sounded more relieved than amused, even as her mouth twisted into a dissatisfied pout.
"Still…" she started, clearly wanting to argue, clearly wanting to be better, faster, less of a burden.
Soren wanted to reassure her properly, to say something warm and direct that would settle that anxious wobble in her chest, but his own unease wouldn't give him the room for it.
Because behind them, the forest had gone wrong.
Not quiet in the normal way, not the gentle hush of leaves and distant birds, but the kind of silence that felt deliberate, like something had stopped moving in order to listen.
And ever since the noise behind them had cut off, his instincts had been screaming.
His near-death experience in Rena Forest hadn't made him brave; it had made him sensitive to the little shifts, the moments where the world stopped behaving the way it was supposed to, and right now everything in him kept insisting that if they slowed down at the wrong time, they would pay for it.
He forced his expression into something calm, something dependable, because Olivia was watching him like he was the map out of a cave, and he couldn't afford to look lost.
"You're doing well," he said, firmer now, meeting her eyes for a moment so she couldn't dodge the sincerity. "I mean it. Let's keep moving, alright?"
Their destination was already decided, and he had decided it the moment the explosion had sounded close enough to shake the air.
The bracelet's top-ten broadcast had turned the forest into a hunting ground, and he didn't need to know exactly who had clashed behind them to understand the shape of the danger.
Someone strong enough to make that kind of noise was also someone strong enough to decide they wanted easy points, and Olivia's name glowing in tenth place was basically an invitation.
He wasn't even sure they were being chased specifically, but he wasn't about to gamble two entire skills on the hope that they were just unlucky enough to be nearby.
One wrong assumption, one moment of hesitation, and everything he had clawed together over the past week and a half would be gone, and worse, Olivia would be gone with it, because she would be the one who couldn't keep up if the sprint turned into a chase.
"Okay!" Olivia replied quickly, nodding hard as if she could nod her fear away, then she forced a smile that was a little too bright to be real. "I-I'm okay, I can do it!"
Soren didn't call out the tremor in her voice.
He just shifted his pace slightly, not slowing enough to feel like retreat, but enough to make it possible for her to stay close without tripping over panic.
They moved again, weaving between trees, stepping over roots and fallen branches, the ground uneven with damp soil and patches of moss, and every so often Soren's gaze flicked to the side, checking their surroundings, checking the gaps between trunks, listening for the wrong kind of movement, the heavy footfall of someone who didn't care about stealth because they didn't need it.
Leaves brushed his sleeves, twigs snapped underfoot, and each sound felt too loud.
Every time Olivia's breathing hitched beside him, he wanted to tell her to breathe slower, to match him, to keep it quiet, but he also knew she was trying, and the last thing he wanted was to make her feel like she was failing again.
So he kept his tone gentle, and his body angled slightly toward her as if he could shield her from the forest itself, and he made himself keep moving even when his legs started to complain, because stopping would mean letting the fear catch up.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
"Huff… Soren… huff… can we… huff… take a break…?"
'Finally.'
Soren didn't let the relief show on his face, but inside his chest something unclenched with almost embarrassing gratitude.
They had been alternating between walking and running for over an hour, pushing through the undergrowth with a single-minded focus that left no room for comfort or hesitation, and now his thighs ached with that heavy, sour burn of overuse, his lungs scraping every time he drew in air.
He turned toward Olivia, making sure his expression was calm before he spoke, then he deliberately let some of his exhaustion seep into his voice, as if he had been holding it back for her sake and was only now allowing it to exist.
"Huff… yeah," he said, managing a small, reassuring smile. "Sure. Good call."
Olivia looked like she might cry with relief, then immediately tried to hide it by brightening up, as if being grateful for rest was something to be ashamed of.
Soren's gaze flicked over her quickly, checking for anything he had missed while they had been moving, scraped palms, torn fabric, a limp she was pretending not to have, but it was mostly just fatigue, sweat at her hairline, flushed cheeks, and that stubborn determination that kept dragging her forward even when her body clearly wanted to stop.
She had lasted longer than he expected, and the fact annoyed him in the way truth always did.
'Who would've thought her stamina was better than mine…'
His own stamina had burned out ages ago, and the only reason he had kept going without asking for a break was because Olivia was still moving, still trying, and the idea of being the first one to admit he needed to stop had sat in his gut like a stone.
It wasn't just pride, though pride was there, stubborn and petty; it was also strategy, because he needed to look dependable in her eyes, and dependable people didn't pant first, didn't slow first, didn't become the burden.
Not when the whole alliance was built on her trusting him enough to follow.
Olivia made a small sound that was half cheer and half whine, then collapsed against the nearest tree as if her bones had turned to jelly.
"Ahh… heaven…!" she breathed, sliding down the trunk until she was sitting on the roots, knees bent, hands on her thighs.
Soren huffed a laugh under his breath, then crouched nearby, close enough to keep an eye on her and the forest at the same time, far enough that she wouldn't feel crowded.
He pulled his canteen from his side and offered it out.
"Here."
Olivia's face lit up instantly, gratitude so obvious it almost hurt.
"Thank you so much, Soren!"
She took it with both hands and drank deeply, without a pause, without even the tiniest flicker of hesitation.
Soren stared at her for a second longer than necessary.
'Wow…'
Some part of his brain, the part that still insisted the world ran on game logic, had half-expected an over-the-top reaction, something along the lines of blushing, stammering, or a panicked, "W-Wouldn't this be an indirect kiss…?"
Instead, she just drank like she was dying of thirst, because she probably was.
He watched the way she tilted the canteen, the way her throat bobbed as she swallowed, then he looked away quickly, not because he was flustered, but because his mind had immediately started trying to categorise what it meant, and he didn't want to be the kind of person who analysed a girl's sip of water like it was a romance event flag.
'I can't tell if she doesn't see me as a guy, if the thought never crossed her mind… or if she just doesn't care.'
A beat of silence, then he settled on the simplest answer.
'Well, whatever, doesn't really matter anyway.'
He could tease her about it, he could make it a joke, or he could lighten the mood by acting like some smug protagonist, but he didn't, because making things awkward would complicate the alliance, and he didn't want her to start second-guessing every small kindness he offered.
Also because, even as the thought came, another one followed right behind it, sharp enough to cut through the humour.
'Plus… NTRing Alex is a no-go.'
The idea arrived half playfully, wrapped in the ridiculousness of game tropes and fandom jokes, but the reasoning underneath it was bluntly serious.
Olivia had been crushing on Alex for over ten years, not a cute little academy flirtation, not a passing interest, but a history that ran back to childhood, to bullying and rescue and the kind of bond people built their whole future around, and Soren didn't want to stumble in with a pretty face and a few gentle words and accidentally knock that over like it was a prop.
Even if he could, even if she ever looked at him that way, he knew it would be wrong.
It would also be dangerous, because the woman before him now was one of the three main women the world focused on.
And Soren already knew that being noticed could get you stabbed.
So yes, he could joke about it in his head, because humour was easier than fear, but he couldn't afford to treat it lightly.
He had seen himself in the mirror enough times to understand what he looked like now, and when someone reached a certain level of attractiveness, even casual kindness could be misread as flirting, even water could become a story.
He didn't want rumours or misunderstandings, and he definitely didn't want Olivia's heart tangled up in the wrong direction because he had been careless with the way he looked at her.
Still, the arrogance of the thoughts made him wince somewhat.
'Oh, the pain of being attractive,' he thought, dry and self-mocking, because if he didn't laugh at it he would start thinking about all the ways it could go wrong.
Olivia handed the canteen back with a soft, happy sigh, like she had just been given a gift instead of basic hydration.
Soren took it, then refilled it with [Aqua], the cool water forming cleanly inside without spilling, before screwing the lid back on.
He stayed crouched, eyes sweeping the woods while his breathing steadied, listening past the sound of his own pulse for anything that didn't belong.
Branches swayed gently in the breeze, birds chirped somewhere far off, and the longer they rested without being attacked, the more his shoulders loosened, but he didn't let himself relax fully, because the forest didn't care about comfort, and the exam certainly didn't.
At least Olivia's voice returned first, brightening the quiet as if she could make the tension lighter just by talking.
"At this rate, we'll easily end in the top ten… Ahh! I'm so happy," she said, hugging her knees again, rocking slightly with contained excitement. "I can't wait for my allowance to go up."
Soren glanced at her, then let his expression soften, because this was the part of her he liked, the part that could still be cheerful even after running for an hour in fear.
"What are you planning to buy?" he asked, taking a careful drink from his own side canteen, then immediately feeling jealous that she looked more refreshed than him.
"Mmm… pretty clothes and makeup, probably," Olivia said, then her enthusiasm faltered into shyness as her cheeks turned pink. "I've never really been able to afford them and…"
Her voice trailed off, eyes flicking away as if she had said too much.
Soren felt the answer before she said it, and it came with a strange warmth, because it was so simple, so human, not power or anything large, just the simple feeling of wanting to be pretty.
He knew, vaguely, that achievements mattered to students, that top-ten placements could translate into better allowances and better meals and fewer humiliations, especially for commoners who didn't have a family name to cushion them, but hearing it in her voice made it real, made it harder to treat this world like a game.
He let a small, teasing smirk touch his mouth, keeping it gentle so it wouldn't scare her into retreat.
"You've got someone you want to show, don't you?"
Olivia froze so hard it was almost impressive, mouth parting, eyes widening like a startled rabbit.
"!!!"
Soren immediately softened, lifting a hand as if to wave away the pressure.
"Pfft, it's fine," he added quickly, tone easy. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. Let's just make sure we survive today first, yeah?"
Olivia nodded fast, then hesitated, fingers tightening around her knees, as if she was fighting with herself.
Then, quieter, almost hopeful, she parted her lips.
"Actually… can I talk about it?"
————「❤︎」————